Digital education not easy – Fapsa

THE head of a group of private schools said tablet education is the best option at this time although it is not new, having been used by a private school in Marikina City in 2012.

The Department of Education (DepEd) earlier said public and private schools should deliver education under flexible learning modes because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Schools shall experience that these online classes, distance learning and even the tablet education is not a walk in the park,” said Federation of Associations of Private School Administrators (Fapsa) President Eleazardo Kasilag.

“The usual negative mindset about gadgets causing addiction or depression now takes a nosedive. With the prescribed online learning, tablet education is one of the best options to continue, if not the best alternative there is in distance education, even in blended learning,” he added.

Kasilag claimed that his school, St. Nicholas School in Marikina, was the first to use tablets among Fapsa schools in 2012.

“We were even earlier than most countries in the world. The tablet was first introduced in schools in 2009,” the school owner said.

Kasilag noted that during the first year of the implementation of tablet education in his school, almost half of the students transferred because their parents were not ready for the system.

He said it was ill-advised for schools to purchase gadgets for their students since parents would complain on faulty devices, deleted modules and long charging time, among others.

“Returned tablets, since the school purchased them for the parents, shall pile up on the principal’s table — a great recipe for an administrator’s depression. It shall affect the entire school and, as what I personally experienced, faculty meetings were always about discourses on tablets,” he added. JAN ARCILLA